Posted on May 6, 2010.
Papa's got a brand new Groove.
By Zac Taylor
Managing Editor
You see these beautiful people in this picture? They’re your new snooty music journalists! Get to know them. From left to right, we have Naomi Gingold, Ann Driscoll, Andrew Slotnick, yours truly, Paul Jefferson, Jehad Choate, Christine Occhino, and Rafael Sanchez.
Paul, Annie, and I are off to other endeavors; namely, places like New York City and Los Angeles. But we’re leaving you in good hands. Andrew is taking over the reigns as managing editor, Rafael is our new web/graphics guru, and Naomi and Jehad are the new staff writers. And they would like to a) be your friend, b) know what’s cool about music from your point of view, and c) listen to your ideas about how to make the Groove as beneficial to us students as possible.
So that’s about it for me, boys and girls. I’ll probably submit a handful more articles, help the new folks get acclimated, and steal any free pizza that happens to find itself available around campus.
It has been an awful lot of fun writing about all of you, and you have all inspired me in countless ways. This is a fun place, yeah? I’m going to leave you with my graduation speech submission that didn’t quite get the go-ahead for Saturday (I’m sure Jack will do an awesome job); but it’s from the heart and I hope you enjoy it. Hit me up in the meantime if you need some help writing your bio or press release; I’d be happy to help.
Oh, I almost forgot–Come to my CD Release Show tonight (5/6) at Cafe 939!!
“Listen Hard”
You know that feeling music gives you? When the hair stands up on your arms. When those chills surge up and down your body. What is that thing?
When I was ten, I used to listen to Nirvana and Beatles CDs on a Discman (it’s what we listened to before iPods). I didn’t know what harmony meant, or how a groove was supposed to work, or even really notice that there were patterns called verses and choruses. All that mattered was that feeling those sounds gave me. That thing.
If there’s one thing I have learned at Berklee, it’s that music does different things for different people. It fulfills different needs. Maybe you need a big fat beat to bob your head to. Maybe it’s a catchy pop-country tune. Maybe it’s that first note Jimi Hendrix plays in the solo from “Machine Gun.”
But here, depending on your major, it could be getting the reverb on the snare drum to sound just right. Or planning a twenty-five city tour for an artist that you manage. Or helping a patient recover with some soothing acoustic guitar. Or blogging about Lady Gaga’s dress, or lack thereof.
Whatever the case may be, it doesn’t matter what your thing is, why you have it, or how you came to have it. All that matters is THAT you have it. That it’s yours, and that it resonates with you. And Berklee didn’t give you that thing—you had it long before you got here. What’s cool about Berklee is that it can give you a blueprint of how to stir it up and bottle it.
A blueprint to help you find that special place where your muse hangs out. Where she takes her tea, and what kind of honey she puts in it. You learn how to listen to her, in her language. An Arab speaks Arabic; a Frenchman speaks French; I suppose your muse speaks music. Our hope is to one day be able to access this special place freely and readily; but remember—Luke Skywalker wasn’t always a master of the force, and Neo didn’t make his first jump in the Matrix. But that didn’t stop them.
During my first semester here, guitar phenom Steve Vai said at a clinic: ‘Find out what you’re good at, and the rest is gravy.’ He was talking about that thing that gives you that feeling.
You don’t have to be famous or on TV to have that thing on overdrive. Most people here know that fame has more to do with money and body curves than anything remotely associated with a passion for music.
I bet you all have a friend that has looked at a famous musician and said, ‘I could play better than him.’ I know I have…But at t his stage in the game, we’re finding out that it’s not about who’s the best guitarist, best singer, best songwriter, or best sousaphone player. Technique can be perfected, but art cannot. The artists that can move you are the ones that A) have that thing spinning real hard for them, and B) also know how to show it to you. I’ve been moved as many times from a performance in a class, coffeehouse, or even subway platform than I have from watching whoever’s on TV.
You walk around these halls, and you see the jazz kids’ brains frolicking through the deepest jungles of harmony. You hear the gospel kids scatting the most ridiculous vocal runs. You see the synth kids chopping up sine waves into a galaxy of otherworldly sounds. You watch the singer-songwriters sending out text messages to get people out to Club Passim. Everyone is frantically pacing around this place in search of the keys to that code to his or her own special thing.
Now here we are in 2010. Ticket sales are way up. Record sales are way down. You have people becoming rock stars on game shows. You have video games with plastic guitars and drums. You have Ashlee Simpson. What does 
it all mean?
It may seem dire for those of us with a real passion for real music.
But we all have hope—more hope than can be measured. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here today. Sitting next to each other. Making plans for later today, next week, next year. Hey—let’s hang out and listen to that record.
Music is a communal experience. And of course, us music nerds can sit around a jaw about the EQ of a bass amp, or the lyrical arc of a song, which is all fine and dandy. But real people (non-musicians) need that communal experience, too. You don’t have to know about music to love it, the same way you don’t have to be a cardiologist to know your heart makes you feel good things and bad things. But the cardiologist doesn’t regulate his treatment only to other doctors; he heals real people, the same way musicians have a healing power, and a duty to use it. And any Berklee professor will tell you: if you make music for musicians, you will STARVE.
The young artists who get ahead in today’s industry know about the power of community. You see the amateur MCs free-styling in a group. You see a jazz TRIO trading fours at Wally’s. You see the Monkey Rock Writer’s Circle at All Asia every Wednesday to hang out and play songs for each other. We’re on the same team.
Some of us will be luckier than others. Some are better connected. Some will just plain work harder. And the competition is as fierce as it’s ever been. But for the ones with real passion for real music, community will always triumph over competition.
Think of the people you’ve met in Harmony class. The kids you’ve sat next to at Crazy Dough’s. Your humble student newspaper. Of course they’re your friends, but it goes beyond the g-chatting, the Myspace top-friending and the Twitter following. They are your fellow soldiers in this insane industry. They are the ears that will hear your first rough cut. They are the hands that will help you lift that Marshall stack into the back of a Volvo. They are the honest critics who will see you on TV and tell you, ‘You know, the camera really does add about ten lbs.’ They are the ones who will be at your house in sixty years to tell your grandchildren about the time you were in a band together, and you had to lug your drums around on the subway in Manhattan.
Matthews Knowles, music biz heavyweight and father and manager of Beyonce, spoke at David Friend Recital Hall last year. At the end of his conference, he asked all of the singers in the room to stand up. Then the songwriters. Then the drummers. Then the producers. Then the videographers, and so on. Then he said: ‘everyone you need to succeed is right in this room.’
And so it is: everyone, and everything, you need is right here all around you. We’re all on the same team.
Good luck, listen hard, and don’t ever let that mysterious feeling music gives you fade away.
The other day, I got to the Central Square bus stop just in time to the CT-1 pull away. It was sunny and warm for a November day in Boston, so I decided to walk to school. I passed by the Middle East and got a noseful of fresh hummus and pita bread. Then came the rack of dainty dress shirt and clay pots for sale at the Salvation Army. And of course, All Asia’s corner window full of posters of local bands, most of whom I know personally. As I neared MIT, another bus passed that I would have caught had I waited back at Central; but I knew where I was heading, and I got there just the same.
